|
|
1
|
Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen [Secure]
by Julie Powell
|
|
With the humor of Bridget Jones and the vitality of Augusten Burroughs, Julie Powell recounts how she conquered every recipe in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking and saved her soul. Julie Powell is 30-years-old, living in a rundown apartment in Queens and working at a soul-sucking secretarial job that's going nowhere. She needs something to break the monotony of her life, and she invents a deranged assignment. She will take her mother's dog-eared copy of Julia Child's 1961 classi... more info>> (Published: 2001)
Category: People
|
16 Reader Ratings:
|
|
|
|
2
|
Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of Seal Team 10 [Secure]
by Patrick Robinson, Marcus Luttrell
|
|
Four US Navy SEALS departed one clear night in early July, 2005 for the mountainous Afghanistan-Pakistan border for a reconnaissance mission. Their task was to document the activity of an al Qaeda leader rumored to have a small army in a Taliban stronghold. Five days later, only one of those Navy SEALS made it out alive. This is the story of the only survivor of Operation Redwing, SEAL team leader Marcus Luttrell, and the extraordinary firefight that led to the largest loss of life in American N... more info>>
Category: People
|
23 Reader Ratings:
|
|
|
|
3
|
The Glass Castle: A Memoir [Secure]
by Jeannette Walls
|
|
The Glass Castle is a remarkable memoir of resilience and redemption, and a revelatory look into a family at once deeply dysfunctional and uniquely vibrant. When sober, Jeannette's brilliant and charismatic father captured his children's imagination, teaching them physics, geology, and how to embrace life fearlessly. But when he drank, he was dishonest and destructive. Her mother was a free spirit who abhorred the idea of domesticity and didn't want the responsibility of raising a family. The Wa... more info>>
Category: People
|
22 Reader Ratings:
|
|
|
|
| Great |
Good |
OK |
Poor |
|
|
|
|
4
|
The Last Lecture [Secure]
by Randy Pausch
|
|
"We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand."--Randy Pausch. When Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University, was asked to give a "last lecture," he didn't have to imagine it as his last, since he had recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer. But the lecture he gave--"Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams"--wasn't about dying. It was about the importance of overcoming obstacles, of enabling the dreams of others, of seizing every moment (... more info>>
Category: People
|
22 Reader Ratings:
|
|
|
|
5
|
Belle de Jour: Diary of an Unlikely Call Girl [Secure]
by Belle de Jour
|
|
Belle couldn't find a job after University. Her impressive degree was not paying her rent or buying her food. But after a fantastic threesome with a very rich couple who gave her a ton of money, Belle realized that she could earn more than anyone she knew--by becoming a call girl (Published: 2007)
Category: People
|
6 Reader Ratings:
|
|
|
|
6
|
Losing It, And Gaining My Life Back One Pound at a Time [Secure]
by Valerie Bertinelli
|
|
We all knew and loved Valerie Bertinelli as the girl next door cutie, Barbara Cooper, in the hit TV show "One Day at a Time." Now she is the divorced mother of a teenager and is conducting a very public--and already successful--campaign to lose weight as a spokesperson for Jenny Craig. Losing It is Bertinelli's frank motivational story--from her complicated family life to her struggles to maintain a healthy self-image while coping with celebrity, her tumultuous 20-year marriage to rock star Eddi... more info>>
Category: People
|
2 Reader Ratings:
|
|
|
|
|
| Great |
Good |
OK |
Poor |
|
|
|
|
7
|
Letter to My Daughter [Secure]
by Maya Angelou
|
|
For a world of devoted readers, a much-awaited new volume of absorbing stories and inspirational wisdom from one of our best-loved writers. Dedicated to the daughter she never had but sees all around her, Letter to My Daughter reveals Maya Angelou's path to living well and living a life with meaning. Told in her own inimitable style, this book transcends genres and categories: guidebook, memoir, poetry, and pure delight. Here in short spellbinding essays are glimpses of the tumultuous life that ... more info>>
Category: People
|
|
|
|
|
8
|
Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance [Secure]
by Barack Obama
|
|
In this lyrical, unsentimental, and compelling memoir, the son of a black African father and a white American mother searches for a workable meaning to his life as a black American. It begins in New York, where Barack Obama learns that his father--a figure he knows more as a myth than as a man--has been killed in a car accident. This sudden death inspires an emotional odyssey--first to a small town in Kansas, from which he retraces the migration of his mother's family to Hawaii, and then to Keny... more info>>
Category: People
|
26 Reader Ratings:
|
|
|
|
9
|
Einstein: His Life and Universe [Secure]
by Walter Isaacson
|
|
How did his mind work? What made him a genius? Isaacson's biography shows how his scientific imagination sprang from the rebellious nature of his personality. His fascinating story is a testament to the connection between creativity and freedom. Based on newly released personal letters of Einstein, this book explores how an imaginative, impertinent patent clerk--a struggling father in a difficult marriage who couldn't get a teaching job or a doctorate--became the mind reader of the creator of th... more info>>
Category: People
|
10 Reader Ratings:
|
|
|
|
|
| Great |
Good |
OK |
Poor |
|
|
|
|
10
|
A Weeping upon the Thames [An Exploration of Charles Dickens]
by John T. Cullen
|
|
Charles Dickens was one of the top three investigative journalists of his century, besides being a famous novelist. We explore the surprising and often shocking background that makes him as relevant today as he was in the Victorian world. London's rookeries were even more notorious than the Five Points section in Gangs of New York. (Published: 2003)
Words: 6200 - Reading Time: 17-24 min.
Category: People
|
11 Reader Ratings:
|
|
|
|
11
|
Dog Years [Secure]
by Mark Doty
|
|
Why do dogs speak so profoundly to our inner lives? When Mark Doty decides to adopt a dog as a companion for his dying partner, he finds himself bringing home Beau, a large golden retriever, malnourished and in need of loving care. Beau joins Arden, the black retriever, to complete their family. As Beau bounds back into life, the two dogs become Mark Doty's intimate companions, his solace, and eventually the very life force that keeps him from abandoning all hope during the darkest days. Their t... more info>> (Published: 2007)
Category: People
|
|
|
|
|
12
|
Escape [Secure]
by Carolyn Jessop, Laura Palmer
|
|
The dramatic first-person account of life inside an ultra-fundamentalist American religious sect, and one woman's courageous flight to freedom with her eight children. When she was eighteen years old, Carolyn Jessop was coerced into an arranged marriage with a total stranger: a man thirty-two years her senior. Merril Jessop already had three wives. But arranged plural marriages were an integral part of Carolyn's heritage: She was born into and raised in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ ... more info>>
Category: People
|
8 Reader Ratings:
|
|
|
|
13
|
FDR [Secure]
by Jean Edward Smith
|
|
One of today's premier biographers has written a modern, comprehensive, indeed ultimate book on the epic life of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In this superlative volume, Jean Edward Smith combines contemporary scholarship and a broad range of primary source material to provide an engrossing narrative of one of America's greatest presidents. This is a portrait painted in broad strokes and fine details. We see how Roosevelt's restless energy, fierce intellect, personal magnetism, and ability to proj... more info>>
Category: People
|
2 Reader Ratings:
|
|
|
|
|
| Great |
Good |
OK |
Poor |
|
|
|
|
14
|
Geisha, A Life [Secure]
by Mineko Iwasaki,
|
|
No woman in the three-hundred-year history of the karyukai has ever come forward in public to tell her story. We have been constrained by unwritten rules not to do so, by the robes of tradition and by the sanctity of our exclusive calling ... But I feel it is time to speak out. Celebrated as the most successful geisha of her generation, Mineko Iwasaki was only five years old when she left her parents' home for the world of the geisha. For the next twenty-five years, she would live a life filled ... more info>> (Published: 2002)
Category: People
|
14 Reader Ratings:
|
|
|
|
15
|
Grand Obsession: A Piano Odyssey [Secure]
by Perri Knize
|
|
A fascinating, lyrical memoir about one woman's obsessive search for the perfect piano--and about finding and pursuing passion at any age. How can a particular piano be so seductive that someone would turn her life upside down to answer its call? How does music change human consciousness and transport us to rapture? What makes it beautiful? In this elegantly written and heartfelt account, Perri Knize explores these questions with a music lover's ardor, a poet's inspiration, and a reporter's thir... more info>>
Category: People
|
1 Reader Ratings:
|
|
|
|
|
| Great |
Good |
OK |
Poor |
|
|
|
|
16
|
Life Beyond Measure: Letters to My Great-Granddaughter [Secure]
by Sidney Poitier
|
|
Sidney Poitier is one of the most revered actors in the history of Hollywood. He has overcome enormous obstacles in extraordinary times and is a role model for many Americans because of his convictions, bravery, and grace. Poitier reflects on his amazing life in Life Beyond Measure, offering inspirational advice and personal stories in the form of extended letters to his great-granddaughter. Writing for all who admire his example and who search for wisdom only a man of great experience can offer... more info>>
Category: People
|
|
|
|
|
17
|
Loose Girl: A Memoir of Promiscuity [Secure]
by Kerry Cohen
|
|
Kerry Cohen's extraordinary memoir tells it like it is--she's a teenager like any other, dealing with parents, school, and friends, but for some reason, "standing out" seems to have become almost impossible. Boys--and men--are a different matter altogether, and young Kerry soon realizes that, with the right clothes and attitude, she can get all the male attention she wants. What she doesn't realize is how easy it is to get more than you're ready for. In rich, engaging detail, LOOSE GIRL discover... more info>>
Category: People
|
1 Reader Ratings:
|
|
|
|
|
| Great |
Good |
OK |
Poor |
|
|
|
|
18
|
sTORI Telling [Secure]
by Tori Spelling
|
|
She was television's most famous virgin--and, as Aaron Spelling's daughter, arguably its most famous case of nepotism. Portraying Donna Martin on Beverly Hills, 90210, Tori Spelling became one of the most recognizable young actresses of her generation, with a not-so-private personal life every bit as fascinating as her character's exploits. Yet years later the name Tori Spelling too often closed--and sometimes slammed--the same doors it had opened. sTORI Telling is Tori's chance to finally tell ... more info>>
Category: People
|
5 Reader Ratings:
|
|
|
|
|
| Great |
Good |
OK |
Poor |
|
|
|
|
19
|
The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography [Secure]
by Sidney Poitier
|
|
"I have no wish to play the pontificating fool, pretending that I've suddenly come up with the answers to all life's questions. Quite that contrary, I began this book as an exploration, an exercise in self-questing. In other words, I wanted to find out, as I looked back at a long and complicated life, with many twists and turns, how well I've done at measuring up to the values I myself have set."--Sidney Poitier. In this luminous memoir, a true American icon looks back on his celebrated life and... more info>>
Category: People
|
4 Reader Ratings:
|
|
|
|
|
| Great |
Good |
OK |
Poor |
|
|
|
|
20
|
A Girl Named Zippy: Growing Up Small in Mooreland, Indiana [Secure]
by Haven Kimmel
|
|
When Haven Kimmel was born in 1965, Mooreland, Indiana was a sleepy little hamlet of three hundred people. Nicknamed "Zippy" for the way she would run around like a circus monkey, this small girl was possessed of big eyes and even bigger ears. In this lovingly told memoir, Kimmel takes readers back in time to when small-town America was still trapped in the amber of the innocent post-war period--people help their neighbors, go to church, keep barnyard animals in their backyards. To three-year-ol... more info>> (Published: 2002)
Words: 150000 - Reading Time: 428-600 min.
Category: People
|
8 Reader Ratings:
|
|
|
|
|
| Great |
Good |
OK |
Poor |
|
|
|
|
21
|
A Treasury of Christmas Miracles [Secure]
by Karen Kingsbury
|
|
Collected here are more than a dozen real-life stories about people whose lives were changed by something mysterious and undeniably wonderful during this special time of the year, tales of ordinary people whose lives are touched in the most extraordinary ways. (Published: 2001)
Category: People
|
3 Reader Ratings:
|
|
|
|
|
| Great |
Good |
OK |
Poor |
|
|
|
|
22
|
A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare [Secure]
by James Shapiro
|
|
An intimate history of Shakespeare, following him through a single year--1599--that changed not only his fortunes but the course of literature How was Shakespeare transformed from being a talented poet and playwright to become one of the greatest writers who ever lived? In this one exhilarating year we follow what he reads and writes, what he sees, and whom he works with as he invests in the new Globe Theatre and creates four of his most famous plays--Henry the Fifth, Julius Caesar, As You Like ... more info>> (Published: 2005)
Category: People
|
2 Reader Ratings:
|
|
|
|
|
| Great |
Good |
OK |
Poor |
|
|
|
|
23
|
Accidental Playboy: Caught in the Ultimate Male Fantasy [Secure]
by Leif Ueland
|
|
Sometime journalist Leif Ueland has hit rock bottom as a straight single male: not only does he not have a girlfriend, but he's also a really nice guy who's visibly uncomfortable in the presence of overt he-manishness. Combine that with no job, money, or decent apartment, and the result is acute insecurity. How, he wonders, can he expect to decode women's sexuality if he can't even understand his own? Then, the opportunity of a lifetime comes along: The world's leading men's magazine needs a Fea... more info>>
Category: People
|
1 Reader Ratings:
|
|
|
|
|
| Great |
Good |
OK |
Poor |
|
|
|
|
24
|
Angela's Ashes: A Memoir [Secure]
by Frank McCourt
|
|
The #1 national bestseller. Winner of the National Book Critics Circle
Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Award, and the ABBY Award.
"When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I managed to survive
at
all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is
hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is
the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish
Catholic childhood."
So begins the luminous memoir of Frank McCo... more info>> (Published: 1999)
Category: People
|
12 Reader Ratings:
|
|
|
|
|
| Great |
Good |
OK |
Poor |
|
|
|
|
25
|
Born on a Blue Day: Inside the Extraordinary Mind of an Autistic Savant [Secure]
by Daniel Tammet
|
|
Born on a Blue Day is a journey into one of the most fascinating minds alive today--guided by its owner himself. Daniel Tammet sees numbers as shapes, colors, and textures, and he can perform extraordinary calculations in his head. He can learn to speak new languages fluently, from scratch, in a week. In 2004, he memorized and recited more than 22,000 digits of pi, setting a record. He has savant syndrome, an extremely rare condition that gives him almost unimaginable mental powers, much like th... more info>>
Category: People
|
14 Reader Ratings:
|
|
![Long [100000 words]](/images/long.gif "Long [100000 words]")
![Very Long [150000 words]](/images/verylong.gif "Very Long [150000 words]")
